A Look at GNOME 2.14

An anonymous reader writes "Gnome has a nice preview of their newest version 2.14 posted which should be hitting the streets around the 15th of March. From the article: "As well as new features and more polish, developers have been working around the clock to squeeze more performance out of the most commonly used applications and libraries. This is a review of some of the most shiny work that has gone into the upcoming GNOME release."

Comments

Coral Cache Link

[Breaker_1]

Before they get slashdotted: http://www.gnome.org.nyud.net:8080/~davyd/gnome-2- 14/

Re:Coral Cache Link

[47F0]

Gnope. Gnot doing it. Gnot today, Gnot tomorrow.

Kall me krazy, or just konfused, but I kan't konceive klicking to another desktop. Kount me out.

Biggest change:

[Musteval]

The "File" menu has been disabled in all programs. GNOME proponents stated that the change is to ensure that end users "aren't confused by all of the big words, like 'exit' and 'print.'" The Edit menu has been removed in most programs.

Re:Biggest change:

[hackstraw]

The "File" menu has been disabled in all programs. GNOME proponents stated that the change is to ensure that end users "aren't confused by all of the big words, like 'exit' and 'print.'" The Edit menu has been removed in most programs.

Yes, that is funny!

However, who in their right mind would put 'exit' under the "File" menu? 'print' and 'close' makes sense, but 'exit' is to exit a program, not do anything with a file.

Re:Biggest change:

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

That NOT true!

The File menu has simply been integrated into the Edit menu. The Edit menu was then dropped.

Re:Biggest change:

[modecx]

It's clear that you've never encountered users who "Click out of a file", which seems to be most of them. I'm still not quite sure how that one is supposed to work, but I've also known my share of users who "Exit a file", which they apparently took from File->Exit. Anyway...

Re:Biggest change:

[timster]

Silly FUD. The Edit menu is still available if you edit your gnome.prefs to include the line "UseMenuThatShallNotBeNamedBecauseItHasBeenDeclare dBad=1" in the "StupidAnachronisms" section.

Re:Biggest change:

[jacksonj04]

I've encountered users who have not realised that applications could be closed. They called site support saying their system was slow. I walked in, saw their taskbar full of apps and just hit the power button. I would have said that on their double-layer taskbar there was only 5 or 6 pixels per active task.

Impressive

[the_rev_matt]

Makes me want to fire up my linux box again. I particularly like the admin tools and the "save your search as a folder" feature. OS X admin tools are sometimes a little restricted for my taste.

Progress!

[hackstraw]

It looks like I'm going to have to admin a lab of Linux boxes soon, and I'm pleased with the progress that is coming on the nebulous "Linux desktop".

Although, both Gnome and KDE are still 90'ish, at least Gnome is now knocking off OS X instead of Windows.

Now, for the confusing part. Why was their previous allocator so lame compared to malloc()? Its worth a read to check out this for an allocator. Being that multi-core/"threads"/CPUs are pretty common today, its worth using that to one's advantage.

Re:Progress!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome is now knocking off OS X

Why not call it collaboration instead. OS X is using like 50 GNU programs straight off, source and everything. Gnome (Which is part of GNU) is borrowing some ideas, but not code from OS X. "Knocking off" seams like a bad thing when both GNU and Apple are using eachohers ideas and it's probably benifitial for both projects.

Re:Progress!

[be-fan]

Now, for the confusing part. Why was their previous allocator so lame compared to malloc()?

Because glibc's malloc() is actually a pretty fast and scalable piece of code for a general-purpose memory allocator. Even GNOME's new special-purpose allocator only gets about twice the performance of glibc's.

Re:Progress!

[QuantumG]

Call me crazy, but why bother coding it then? Isn't the trusted stability and consistency of glibc malloc() worth more than a minor speed increase?

I think...

[sheepoo]

it's sexy

Re:I think...

[SpinJaunt]

foot fetishist?

Re:Will it be in FC5 or Ubuntu 6.next?

[Philodoxx]

Every Ubuntu release is timed so that it arrives shortly after the release of gnome. This is done so that the Ubuntu release features the latest and greatest of what gnome has to offer.

Re:Will it be in FC5 or Ubuntu 6.next?

[Sodki]

Yes, GNOME 2.14 will be in both Fedora Core 5 and Ubuntu 6.04 aka Dapper Drake.

GNOME rocks (no offence to KDE)

[stikves]

GNOME has definately become a solid desktop with the recent releases (after 2.6 or 2.8). Now everything "works" perfectly (almost) out of the box. (USB sticks, iPods, DVD burners, all kinds of multimedia, SFTP/DAV/SMB/etc integration, openoffice, and many more).

It has replaced Windows XP as my current primary desktop, and I can finally recommend Linux to my friends without hesitation.

(btw You shouldn't have "DDOSed" the poor server. It contains really nice information.)

Program Naming

[caerwyn]

Why do so many linux programmers insist on such crazy naming conventions. Sabayon? Changing a perfectly servicable and pragmagic GNOME Meeting to "Ekiga"?

I use linux both at home and at work, so I'm not some anti-linux zealot or something- I think it's a legitimate question to raise. On my mac laptop, I have a handy app for browsing mDNS networks called Rendezvous Browser (since mDNS was once called Rendezvous). The name is simple and describes perfectly what the program does. On the other hand, 90% of the linux applications available have names that look like they were chosen by picking random letters and squishing them together. I'm sure that the programmers think they've very clever by choosing a name that means something in some obscure language- or they just thing the name sounds cool- but that simple lack of meaningful names is detrimental. If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

Re:Program Naming

[Yaztromo]

While I don't disagree that a lot of OSS software uses poor naming onventions, as an OSS developer myself, I can understand the reasons behind it.

Let's face it -- the obvious descriptive names are typically already taken. OSS developers want to write software -- they don't want to have to spend a lot of time doing name searches in order to ensure they aren't infringing on a trademark used by some tiny software house out in BF Nowhere, and they typically don't have the resources to fend off a legal attack. Thus, the tendancy these days is to pick (or make up) some sort of really obscure name that hopefully isn't going to attract negative attention from litigation-happy corporate lawyers, and then hopefully make a name for yourself.

Naming is difficult, even within the corporate world. But at least within the corporate world you have people who can do research on existing trademarks, and will hopefully come up with a suitable name for your new product -- and then have the lawyers to fight it as necessary. OSS projects don't have such resources.

Just take a look at your own example -- "Rendevous". Apple was forced to change the name to "Bonjour" due to trademark infringement with another company.

If Apple, with its bevy of lawyers and billions of dollars, can run into such a problem, what is the poor OSS developer to do? Picking some obscure name that nobody is likely to call their product is a good (but hardly guaranteed) way to avoid the problem in the first place.

Yaz.

Re:Program Naming

[Coryoth]

If I start up a GNOME session and want to use network meeting functionality, how is there any possible way that I could guess that "Ekiga" is the application I'm looking for?

Because if things have been installed and set up properly "Ekiga" will be under the "Internet" sub-menu of the "Applications" menu, and the entry itself will read something like "Ekiga video-conferencing" with a tooltip saying something like "Communicate with others using text, voice phone calls, or video conferencing". You hold up "Rendezvous Browser" as a well named application because it's clear what it does, but it really begs the question: what the hell is Rendezvous and what does it do? I think the GNOME approach - to choose a distinctive name and pair that with a concise description - is a very good one. You can't have everything named after what it does or else things quickly get pointlessly confused, so distinctive names are good - as long as you pair that with a description of what the app does so people can find it easily. You'll find GNOME conforms to that pretty well, and the result (always having descriptive menu entries and explanatory tooltips for those entries) actually makes for a system where it is easier to find what you want.

Jedidiah.

Re:Program Naming

[IamTheRealMike]

You're right. They should have called it something meaningful, like Skype.

Re:Program Naming

[Queer Boy]

Yes that name makes perfect sense. What exactly is Rendezvous, again?

The French word meaning "a meeting". Maybe in your attempt at making a point you meant Bonjour.

The point he was making was that a perfectly meaningful name was intentionally obscured for who knows why. Also I've never heard ZeroConf Networking Browser on any platform, but I know of Bonjour on Windows and Macintosh, as well as being listed on a lot of printer boxes lately.

The Linux desktop is finally coming into it's own

[carlmenezes]

You have Gnome and KDE - two very different approaches that manage to co-exist side by side. I'm a KDE guy myself, but I must say that Gnome's looking really polished and I can see Gnome and KDE standing beside, if not taller than Windows in the near future. I won't be switching because I like KDE's direction, but there are probbaly a lot of Gnome users who say the same and I can appreciate that.
We also do need to thank the artists that put in the time to create the icons and mouse cursors for us. You can put in all the anti-aliasing you want, but if something like the icons dont look good, people get put off. I'm just really happy for the Gnome guys and all I can say is, "keep it up, you're doing a great job!"
Linux is about choice. I wouldn't want either Gnome or KDE to wipe each other out. They need to co-exist simply to show Windows users that there is a choice available if not for anything else :)

Beware the Ides of March!

[dumbnose]

Didn't anyone tell them that this is a dangerous day for this?

Et tu, Bill?

using 2.9.13.9x for a week in Ubuntu 6.10 betas

[pyros]

There are some nice improvements. Gnome-power-manager adds a slick interface to configuring stuff like hibernate on critically low battery, what actions are taken for closing your laptop lid, sleep/power buttons, and stuff like that.

NetworkManager is much improved, too. At least in Ubuntu 6.10 betas, you don't need bind do use it! Instead it finally uses the existing functionaly of the DHCP client to write /etc/resolv.conf. I don't think the VPN stuff from CVS is going to make it in though.

Rhythmbox 0.9.3.1 is pretty nice. It has [iTunes] playlist sharing built in (reportedly, don't anything to share with). I don't have an iPod but I think that should be supported practically out-of-box too. So you might wonder what improvements I actually do notice. You can finally specify a watch folder to sync your library with, import an audio cd, scan removable media, and queue songs from your current playlist. The queue is viewable as a sidebar pane like the cover art display in iTunes. No support for displaying the cover art yet, though.

Gstreamer 0.10 has cleaned up the plugin code, and reorganized their plugin classifications. Good plugins are open source and highly functional. Ugly plugins are legally questionable in some jurisdictions but are highly functional. Bad plugins are ones that may have bad implementations and I guess are more likely to not work. Unfortunately the faad/faac plugins are in the bad package, which currently has to built from source on Ubuntu 6.10. Hopefully that will be added to universe or multiverse by release. Everyone post from someone who has built it reports that AAC files play just fine (including me).

I am having some trouble with dbus/hald not showing desktop icons for hard drive partitions mounted under /media. I set the gconf key for volumes_visible, and that works for CDs and such. But I have to restart dbus/hald after logging in to get partitions to show a desktop icon.

Lastly, I haven't yet got xgl+compiz working yet. But compiz seems hard coded to use Mesa so far, so some people are reporting it's actually slower than plain old xorg with the Ati/Nvidia binary drivers.

GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[billybob2]

GStreamer, the official audio backend for GNOME, will include DRM plugins developed by a company called Fluendo, which hopes to make money by restricting the users' rights and turning GNOME/Linux/"the Free Desktop System" into a Vista-like nightmare controlled by the entertainment cartel. Why? Because Fluendo is on the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board. I can't believe I've been so stupid to actually give them money, so that they can turn around and stab Free Software in the back! Never again will I trust the GNOME Foundation after they sold out the community like this.

I hope KDE is smart enough to avoid DRM by choosing a multimedia backend that is GPL. This will ensure that users can change the code of any plugin, remove the DRM, and be left with a functional product. Xine would be an excellent choice for a multimedia backend, since it is light-weight, works with more codecs that Gstreamer (not to mention better) and can be included as a library in any program, like Kaffeine and Amarok have already done.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[billybob2]

Gstreamer is GPL

Wrong, GStreamer is LGPL only. The GStreamer website is adamant about denying developers the right to license contributed code under the GPL:
We require that all code going into our core package is LGPL. For the plugin code, we require the use of the LGPL for all plugins written from scratch or linking to external libraries.

Fluendo, the company that controls GStreamer, wants to link their DRM plugins to LGPL code contributed by the naive independent developers, who don't realize that by writing LGPL multimedia code, they might as well be working for the RIAA and MPAA.

Xine on the other hand is GPL, and any code that links to Xine must also be GPL. So even if someone decides to make DRM plugins or apps for Xine, they will have to give users the source code to those plugins. There will inevitably be some users who know how to extract the useful part of the codec while leaving out the DRM restrictions. As the KDE developer Aaron Seigo eloquently put it:
DRM + source code = no DRM

Now I realize why Richard Stallman warned against using LGPL for any code, including libraries. Too bad the makes of GTK and GNOME didn't listen. But thank God the makers of Qt and KDE did!

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[diegocgteleline.es]

Vista is much worse than just a plugin, they're planning to control via DRM absolutely all the path that the media content follows from your DVD to your screen.

DRM is just a propietary file format to keep people tied to a software just like CSS is a very succesful way to control the dvd-player market. It's not there to keep people away from seeing video. By implemeting DRM support you break the main purpose of DRM

The one reason why itunes sells DRMed songs is because in 5-10 years, everyone who bought itunes songs will NEED to buy a ipod to listen those songs, no matter if by that time ipod is the worst and more expensive player of the galaxy. You're stuck with apple products

The same goes for DRM'ed .doc documents. Has microsoft published the office stanrdard to let people steal market share from a product which is 30% of the total income of microsoft? Hell, no. Publishing standards in office 2003 looked nice to governments. In the real world, office 2003 also includes DRM. All documents DRM'ed with office will need...office to be opened again in the future. No other software will be able to open them if Microsoft doesn't let them. Office standards being "opened" is just a lie. DRM being "secure" is just a lie. I can do everything office DRM does with PGP - even allowing people to see documents remotely through a "DRM server"

So DRM is just a closed document format. But instead of being a standard closed format which can be reverse-ingeniereed, they use crypto to make the "perfect closed format": A closed format that can't be reverse-enginereed. By allowing people to use DRM in other systems you break the purpose of DRM. But yes, DRM should be avoided. It's ironic that DRM has been created in the country that is supposed to love capitalism - DRM keeps me away from choosing products from other companies which is what the capitalism is about.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[0racle]

restricting the users' rights As opposed to, oh I don't know, some random person advocating restricting users rights to run what they choose to on their system.

Some people are going to want to run and use DRM-ified content. You are trying to restrict their rights to do so by demonizing a technology that can not be evil so as to push forward your own agenda. Information does not want to be free, it can't want anything. Software does not have rights, computers do not have rights. People do have the right to use their system the way they want, and that includes choosing systems that use DRM.

A truly free system allows the user to choose how to use it, it is not one where the developers force their agenda.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[pyros]

Wrong, GStreamer is LGPL only.

My mistake.

We require that all code going into our core package is LGPL. For the plugin code, we require the use of the LGPL for all plugins written from scratch or linking to external libraries.

Good job selectively quoting the site. What they're saying on their licensing page is that in order for a plugin to be part of gstreamer.org's distribution the plugin must be LGPL. The answer is simple, don't write a plugin for gstreamer.org to distribute. Write GPL licensed plugins for the Linux distribution maintainers to distribute. From the licensing page you linked to:To keep this policy viable, the GStreamer community has made a few licensing rules for code to be included in GStreamer's core or GStreamer's official modules, like our plugin packages

Fluendo, the company that controls GStreamer, wants to link their DRM plugins to LGPL code contributed by the naive independent developers,

As is their right under the licensing agreement. But we don't have to use those versions of the plugins if we don't want to. We can compile the non-DRM enabled LGPL code. That is also our right under the licensing agreement.

Xine on the other hand is GPL, and any code that links to Xine must also be GPL

And as a result xine can't legally be distributed in the United States with the ability to play a CSS encrypted DVD. Gstreamer was written with the licensing and framework to avoid that problem. Personally, I would like to see software that plays DVDs on desktop Linux and is legally distributable in the United States. To be honest I'd rather see the legallity not be an issue, but that is harder to get changed.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[Pecisk]

Yeah, yeah, right. What about DVDs I would like to see? What about DRM-enabled bought files from iTunes?

Lets be clear. DRM is not evil. Abuse of it's functionality and usage from RIAA/MPIAA is, well, it is close to stupid and shortsighted (at least so far - region coding for DVD for price fixing, requesting DRM for bough songs in Internet shops like iTunes). But there are lot of LEGAL and UNDERSTANDING uses of DRM in multimedia, even for small media companies.

I understand that music and movie cartel actions is something is should not taken lightly, however, such hyperbole which are claimed by RMS and other "wisle blowers" are too much. Fight companies which abuse DRM, don't fight DRM itself. Because by itself it is just one of technologies to allow copyright holders have their rights fullfilled. If it is abused to limit anything.

It is NOT a black/white situation. And claiming that Fluendo is doing just to give "control of Linux desktop media to cartels" are plainly overblown and childish claim. Fluendo actually created LEGAL mp3 plugin for you to use, freerly. you can download it at their webshop, put it in your home directory, and vola - no half-legal repositories, no endless searching. It is just works.

And by the way, Xine is illegal to distribute in US with mp3/divx/quicktime support. It is just by the way. Mplayer too.
Of course, there is "nothing wrong" with these apps in geeks view. But it totally wrong to think that any distro will get ANY kind of support for those prioritary formats out there with such attitude. Oh, you don't want prioritary formats? What about your XVID videos? What about divx movies? Mp3? Quicktime trailers which geeks love so much? Haven't got enough?

Be real. There is world out there which are seeking compromises not always screaming about something they don't like. And trolling (yes, such claims about Fluendo ARE trolls) won't help not your cause, nor KDE, nor Linux desktop overall.

Re:GNOME's audio backend GStreamer to use DRM

[VStrider]

Noone is forcing anything on you. DRM plugins will be in the "ugly" module. You don't have to install this module. GStreamer will still work perfectly fine with the rest of the plugins.

From gnomejournal:

Most distributions, for legal reasons, only ship a small subset of GStreamer 0.8 plugins. Because GStreamer's plugins are built from the same source module, each packager was forced to split it up to remove components that were illegal or unwise to use in their particular area of operation. The amount of custom code caused a number of problems for users. To solve this, 0.10 has five plugin modules called base, good, ugly, bad and ffmpeg. Base and good contain plugins that any distribution can ship without fear of potential legal issues. Ugly contains well-maintained plugins which may or may have legal issues of some form, generally patent or license issues. Bad is an incubation area where new plugins mature before moving to good or ugly. If a plugin never matures, it may remain in bad for the rest of its life. ffmpeg contains wrappers for all the codecs in the ffmpeg package. This new scheme will allow downstream packagers to have more consistent package naming and installation scripts, making it easier for users to discover and install the plugins that they need.

The base package is not intended to contain all the plugins required by a typical GStreamer setup. Instead, it contains one important example of each type of GStreamer plugin. The code and documentation for base plugins will remain current so developers will always be able to create new plugins from a known working code base.

Naming

[SnarfQuest]

Ekiga, formerly known as GNOME Meeting,

Oooh! Ekiga is a much more meaningful name than GNOME Meeting. GNOME naming just gets better and better. I know the last time I wanted to search for font information, overly sexually active monkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo was the very first thing that popped into my head.

Re:Naming

[gerardlt]

Tssk. What, do you know nothing?

"A delicate bar of cartilage connecting the dorsal and ventral extremities of the first pair of bronchial cartilages in the syrinx of birds."
From The Free Dictionary

Surely everyone knows that!

Re:SW Dualprocessing

[tpgp]

How do I use that with Ubuntu instead of OpenSuSE?

Downoad the latest ubuntu CD, then:

1 .Enable the universe repository (see AddingRepositoriesHowto)
2. Make sure that you have the latest mesa, libglitz1 and libglitz-glx1, xserver-xgl

            sudo apt-get update
            sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa libglitz1 libglitz-glx1 xserver-xgl

3. Install compiz-kde and/or compiz-gnome depending on your desktop

            sudo apt-get install compiz-gnome

4. Replace /etc/X11/X with a symlink to /usr/bin/Xgl

            sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/Xgl /etc/X11/X

5. Close all applications and restart gdm (This will log you out!)

            sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

6. Log in, then in a terminal start compiz and the Gnome window decorator (do NOT use sudo here)

            compiz --replace gconf decoration wobbly fade minimize move place resize scale switcher cube rotate zoom
            gnome-window-decorator

            Leave out the gconf plugin if you don't have compiz-gnome installed

7. Add these commands to ~/.gnomerc if you want this on every login (which you probably do)

Taken from the Ubuntu xgl howto wiki

Re:How do we make it look more compact?

[UuCon]

right-click on your menubar, select properties and then
change the number in the 'Size' box. Done! This feature
has been there since 1.x days.

Toolbar size depends on your font size. Go into your
Preferences->Font and change 'Application Font' to
something smaller.

Re:Will it be in FC5 or Ubuntu 6.next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu doesn't follow Gnome's releases on purpose, it has a standard 6 month release cycle of updates.

Yes, but the clever people at Ubuntu have managed to find a (patent-pending) way to keep their standard 6 month release cycle nicely in sync with the Gnome standard 6 month release cycle. I don't have time to explain to you how it works, though. Sorry.

Re:Why

[pyros]

Why do the Linux GUIs always have the menu bar as part of the windows and the top 3 buttons on the right? Surely it makes more sense to only have one menu bar taking up space at a time, and the buttons near the menus where your mouse is.

KDE can be configured with one global menubar. Both KDE and Gnome can have the buttons on the left, you just have to find a window manager theme that puts them there.

Re:The Linux desktop is finally coming into it's o

[brainnolo]

Your post does not meet /. guidelines. To meet the guidelines you should either:

- Criticize GNOME, its developers and its users
- Criticize KDE, its developers and its users
- Bash Microsoft.
- Make obligatory jokes about russia, etc..

Thank you for attention.

Re:KDE?

[diegocgteleline.es]

KDE is focused in revamping the whole KDE infrastructure with KDE 4, even during the kde 3.5 development some people said 3.5 would be unstable because too many developers where focusing in KDE 4 (kde 3.5.1 is great for me).

So you won't see any kde news for a while except for KDE 4. KDE 3.5 is everything what KDE 3.X has to offer. Of course people could continue developing 3.5, but they're focusing in kde 4....there'll be news in the kde 3.5 field - bugfix releases, updates from individual programs like koffice or kopete - but overall, you won't see any "earthbreaking" change in kde 3.5.

Some gnome developers think that there should not be a gnome 3 - at least, there's zero lines of "gnome 3 code" right now - and that the gnome 2 is OK and that it's much better to do small improvements to the current architecture. This is a big error IMO, but the fact is that until kde 4 is released it will be gnome who gets more attention and releases more attractive things.

Congratulations

[theolein]

It's looking very polished. In the looks department it certainly is good enough for corporate users. It might not be 100% of where OSX is or have the fancy glass effects that Vista will have, but it's certainly light years ahead of what it was just 5 years ago.

I just wish for one thing, and that is that the Gnome and KDE people would cooperate on clipboard and drag and drop standards so that software from one would work in that department at least in the other.

Re:State of Gnome

[stikves]

I have a similar setup of FC4, too. However I've upgraded GNOME from 2.10 to 2.12 using nrpms repositories, and I use several additional mono applications.

My situation is roughly the same, but I have to add several things:

• I currently use XMMS only for "testing" audio files. Rhytmbox or Muine does not have the problems you mention. (I actaully use BMP instead of XMMS, BMS is GTK2 port/fork of XMMS).
  
• Integration of P2P lacking. I cannot comment much, since I only use azureus and it works well. However "magnet" urls (and any other scheme) can be handled easily in gnome (see /desktop/gnome/url-handlers key in gconf for ideas)
  
• CD writing. Actually I installed k3b like you did, but have never used in the past several months. Nautilus burner is more than enough. (Yes no fancy options, however it's sufficent for me).
  
• Movies I'd recommend VLC for H264/HDTV and mplayer for anything else. There has never been any format I could not play lately (including VMW9, QuickTime, H264, AAC, etc). (Did you install win32codecs package?)
  

Anyways it's nice to see another fellow using a similar setup (OK, there are millions like us).

The l337 jargon has me confused . . .

[gcauthon]

From the article:

GNOME 2.14 should be called Searchable GNOME, with the addition of powerful new searching systems in Nautilus and Yelp. Both have a traditional search mode plus a fast, superhot mode for those of you who are Beagle-enabled!

Can someone put this into words that an average user can understand?

Might I suggest. . .

[lord_nimula]

For those who find KDE and Gnome to be a bit much: http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/581/

Re:Advanced GNOME configuration

[fnj]

Well said.

I should be able to explore the majority of the useful functionality just by opening the application and clicking through it.

You should bloody well be able to explore ALL of the functionality, PERIOD. There is simply no excuse for ANY of the configuration options not to be exposed within easy/obvious reach and explorable in as much or as little detail as desired. Don't want to put off beginners? It's dead simple to cater to both beginners and in depth users. It's as simple as putting an "Advanced Preferences" line under the "Preferences" line in the "Edit" menu on the app. Hello? Gnome? Anybody home? How hard is that, damnit!?

Re:Are You Serious? Seriously?

[Peter La Casse]

There are times when the command line is preferrable, but this is a very small percentage of the time if the UI is done properly.

And when that day comes, if it ever does, there will be great rejoicing.

Re:Ironic choice for app that has ...

[prockcore]

Maybe this is Gnome's problem. What are they doing putting any attention toward improving the terminal!

They're not. Gnome Terminal is a good indicator of how fast their font rendering is now. Don't confuse the benchmark programs with the actual technology.

They put attention towards font rendering.. gnome terminal can render anti-aliased fonts faster than an unanti-aliased xterm.

Re:Will I be able to configure the screensaver?

[jejones]

Give me a break. "According to developers".. bullshit. You didn't ask them.

From the gnome-screensaver FAQ:

Why doesn't the screensaver preferences tool allow me to change the settings for the theme?

We are trying to take a different approach. We would prefer for the themes to simply work.

From Bug 316654 - no ability to configure the different screensavers, which is resolved and marked WONTFIX:

I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken.

From Bug 316655 - no ability to full screen preview individual screensavers, which is also resolved and marked WONTFIX:

There are no plans to implement this feature. I don't think this feature solves any real problems.

Res ipsa loquitur.